If Manchester City were shocked to see Robinho walk out of the team hotel when he was supposed to be enjoying a break with his team-mates, then they are more naive than is reasonable for a club with such brassy ambitions. His apology was last night accepted by Mark Hughes perhaps because, with the exception of the virtuous Kaka, eccentric behaviour is simply considered part of the game for most superstar Brazilian footballers.

When Ronaldinho first left his homeland he was as famous for his moves in the discotheques of Paris as on the pitch at the Parc des Princes. While Ronaldo's liking for the pleasures of the night famously went awry when he was caught with three transvestites he met at a Rio soirée.

An episode involving Romario captures the essence of why his countrymen struggle to see why the demands of a professional career should suffocate their social lives. Once questioned by his then manager Claudio Ranieri about his presence on a Valencia dance floor at 4am, the striker responded cheerfully: "I'll worry about me, you worry about the team."

Robinho has form in the partying stakes. During his spell at Real Madrid he famously had to apologise for missing his connection back from South America after an international fixture. "I'm sorry for having been late," he said at the time. "But I'm not apologising for the party. Parties are normal with Brazil after we've won a match and that night we had won 5–0."

The 24-year-old lost credibility by waffling that he thought Real's next game was on the Sunday and not the Saturday and then had to deny a rumour that emerged from that shindig suggesting he had asked someone to fetch 40 condoms for general consumption that night.

In showing a tendency to fly home to Brazil when necessary, or stay out far longer than expected after representing the national team, Robinho is following a long established trend. These misdemeanours were indulged by his former employer. The week after that famous apology, his performance on the pitch was captivating and all was forgiven. What is unclear is whether such behaviour, already heavily criticised by City's executive chairman, Garry Cook, and which has resulted in a fine of two weeks' wages, will help him to engineer the move away from Eastlands that he is believed to want.

The polar attitudes of Robinho and Kaka could not have been more emphatically presented than their choices this week: Kaka outlined his need to be at an elite club by staying at Milan; Robinho outlined his need to be an elite club by running out on Manchester City. It is not surprising he feels like he needed Kaka to join him in the north of England in order to validate the choice he made when he signed at Eastlands in the first place.

The question City must contend with is whether they can handle that being a reason for his sudden leave of absence or not. It is also something their paymasters in Abu Dhabi must ponder at the end of a week that has given them a crash course in the idiosyncratic ways of football business and the talented yet elusive men that make it all happen.

Such stuff is not likely to put Luiz Felipe Scolari off a renewed attempt to capture the player he expected to join Chelsea last summer.

The club's manager said at the time of their failed bid that he did not blame Robinho, but those around him. "There were problems with agents and outsiders," explained Scolari. "I won't forget some things that happened but it is not with Robinho, he is my friend."

The reason that Scolari was so keen on his compatriot – Robinho was said to be "different" to what Chelsea had, offering a new dimension – ring truer today than a few months ago, when the transfer to Stamford Bridge was being talked up.

Scolari and Robinho have never actually worked together, although the coach obviously had one of his country's most exciting teenagers on his radar when he was in charge of the Selecao. Robinho was 18 when Big Phil's Brazil won the 2002 World Cup and had just started his professional career with a handful of appearances for Santos and the heady endorsement of Pele behind him.

Incidentally, whatever did happen to all those Chelsea shirts with "Robinho" on them that were seen in the vicinity of the club shop at Stamford Bridge last summer? Scolari would not mind if in the not too distant future, somebody had reason to dig them out.